infamous

Serbia match will be a repeat of our match in Moscow. Excited and blindly optimistic as the Serbs are prone to choking in big matches but they are a far superior team to ours.

This thread haha

Saw enough positives from that, not enough to claim we will get through the play offs but the last two games were better than I expected. March is still 4 months away, hopefully a few players are in good form come then. This is going to be very tough but it will be tough to take if we make the final and we blow it.. but It would be well deserved given how rocky the campaign has been.

This is the biggest concern.. all the players mentioned are shocking in my eyes. This Scotland gig is tough!

Agree, I actually feel Robertson can't perform around some of our absolute duds. It somewhat exposes him to be a weaker football than he is. He is not the type of player to make others better around him either.

Good read, thanks. I actually posted a thread here a few months back about our record against Pot 1, Pot 2, Pot 3, Pot 4 etc sides. Can't remember the name of the thread but it also digs into what you said more extensively. No business making tournaments if you can't be consistent though. Need to get the job done regularly, that's what I feel some people don't realise about some of these nations that we think we can get past because they are not a "big" nation. Their are plenty of teams that make tournaments, go on occasional runs at a major tournament. It creates/breeds mental toughness and winning.

I feel losing to Serbia, Poland, Russia is not a real shame, maybe I just am too pessimistic about our side but the reality is Serbia normally is strong on paper, Poland have been solid the past 5 years. Russia is always at the big tournaments, they may not be a top 10 side in the world but they have a good history of beating strong sides and making tournaments. I guess it's a lot to do with the fact these sides have players regularly in the UCL Group Stage/Knockout rounds or going far in Europa League. More high pressure high stake matches meaning they are less likely to crumble under pressure. I will be shocked if we qualify!

Really? They may have not won much but look who they played before the World Cup. Spain 3-3, Belgium 3-3, Argentina 0-1, France 1-3, Brazil 0-3, 1-1 Turkey, 0-1 Austria. They barely miss tournaments... majority of the team play in the 6th best league in Europe + CSKA which is a core of the team made the Quarters of the Europa League that season. I actually tipped them to make ROund of 16 easily before the tournament. Not world beaters but to act like they caused some massive shock thumping Saudi and Egypt and taking Spain and Croatia to Pens was no real surprise for me. Especially at home.

Good i wrote that

I did say i feel we will fail to beat Kazakhstan. But going into it today i had optimism... lol. Sigh.

Yep agree but tbh everyone is doping. Russians have always been tested 3 to 4 times more than any athlete. I think when the entire doping scandal started the Russians were caught doping as much as the Australians per test. Think that was partly why CAS has thrown out a lot of the allegations Think worst case scenario russia wont be banned in football. They could cop it like they did at Rio though.

No chance Russia will be kicked out. None of their players ever test positive in UEFA FIFA competitions. The CAF who has final say re-instated 5-6 Gold Medals that Russia was originally found to cheat in. Feel the same will happen here.

Norway, Serbia, Romania all better than us at this point. Serbia simply on paper, form wise they been poor but who knows come March. We will pass Bulgaria or Israel. Feel we will lose the final.

Not sure when the draw happens but we are unlikely to drop out of Pot 3 if it happens this year

Some context though, Russia were missing their 2 best players. Also, having caught some of the match, the Russians were not sitting back and defending relying on counters. Something they did against Spain at the World Cup last year. Looked like they went up against Belgium trying to win. Not often you see Belgium get 42% Possession, 1 Corner (vs Russia's 7) and have the same amount of shots as their opponent. I think the score would have been closer if Russia were playing more conservative football. They will meet each other (Most likely in the group stages at Euro 2020) and I think it will be close (result wise).